Giorgio Amendola

Giorgio Amendola
Giorgio Amendola in 1972
Born	(1907-11-21)November 21, 1907 Rome, Italy
Died	June 5, 1980(1980-06-05) (aged 72) Rome, Italy
Occupation	Politician & journalist
Nationality	Italian
Spouse	Germaine Lecocq
Relatives	Giovanni Amendola (father), Eva Kuhn (mother)

Giorgio Amendola (21 November 1907 – 5 June 1980) was an Italian writer and politician.

Born in Rome in 1907, he was the son of Lithuanian intellectual Eva Kuhn and Giovanni Amendola, a liberal anti-fascist who died in 1926 in Cannes after having been attacked by killers hired by Benito Mussolini. As a result, Amendola secretly joined the Italian Communist Party in 1929 and, after graduating in law, started to propagandize opposition to the Mussolini regime.

Arrested and brought in exile in France, and successively banished to Santo Stefano Island in the Pontine archipelago, he was freed in 1943 by the resistance troops, which he then joined.

After World War II, Amendola served as deputy for the Italian Communist Party from 1948 until his death in 1980. He became known (especially in the 1970s) as one of the leaders of the party's right wing, which espoused gradual removal of the ideas of Soviet Communism and Leninism and supported alliances with the more moderate parties, especially the Italian Socialist Party, a concept later called Eurocommunism. One of his main allies was a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies called Giorgio Napolitano, who was also to become the 11th President of Italy (2006–2015).

From 1967, Amendola also started to work as a writer; his most notable books include Comunismo, antifascismo e Resistenza ("Communism, anti-fascism and resistance", 1967), Lettere a Milano ("Letters to Milan", 1973), Intervista sull'antifascismo^[1] ("Interview on anti-fascism", 1976, with Piero Melograni), Una scelta di vita^[2] ("A choice of life", 1978), and Un'isola ("An island", 1980), considered his best work.

Amendola died in Rome, aged 72, after a long illness. His wife Germaine Lecocq, whom he met during his French exile in Paris and who helped him to write his last work, died a few hours after Amendola.

Today, Giorgio Amendola is regarded and often cited as one of the main precursors of the Olive Tree. His ally Giorgio Napolitano later became the President of the Italian Republic and remains an avowed disciple and follower of Amendola.

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